Victory for me, spoils for you

Posted on March 10, 2010

Just call me a 'Master Infiltrator.' I made it to the inner circle of Victors and Spoils and spoke with one of the men in charge; Evan Fry. It was a tough process, but I finally was able to reach Mr. Fry through his email...tricky tricky.

I entered into the VnS grotto on Monday and was greeted by a beautiful golden retriever that I can only assume was a decoy, but thanks to my quick-thinking, I bypassed this security threat with a disarming show of affection. I reached Evan and briefed him on my mission, to which he complied with a very informative interview. Even as I threw out the hard questions, Evan was able to deliver, much to my surprise.

He described VnS as a sleek, six-person team working to spread the wonders and benefits of crowd-sourcing. Crowd-sourcing, Evan informed me, is "...a buzz word that's been bubbling around for a few years," and is a means of utilizing a specific audience to define a brand. Spurred by the current economy, it fills a gap that allows them to find "...new ways of making things more efficient." Evan welcomes newcomers to "The Crowd," which is not a cult, as I first suspected, but rather a group of copywriters, artists, designers, etc. that form said "audience." The peeps at VnS throw out a project to "The Crowd", hold a vote for the best results, and to the victors belong the spoils. Check out the joining process on their website.

Evan informed me that the mysterious gallery is home to the work of Mark Castator, a sculptor who works with various metals. My personal favorite work of Mark's is "Vincent's Dream."

He also claims that VnS has a sign ready to go up out front, but that the acts of confusion and randomness induced by their anonymity have been more interesting and entertaining than they anticipated.

I concluded the interview with a question to Evan regarding what VnS would bring to Downtown Boulder, hoping to put him on the spot a bit. He answered, "Intrigue."